The Hanging of Samuel Ash (23 page)

“I carry a sidearm,” Hook said.

Skink stuck his hands in his pockets. “You going to tell Patch about me sleeping on the job?”

“Patch strikes me as hard to stop once his button's pushed,” Hook said. “I guess I won't push it.”

Skink grinned. “You want help finding that Samuel Ash, just say so. I know every hiding place in this town.”

*   *   *

After his shower, Hook headed for the Spirit of Agape Orphanage. The sun lit the treetops and set the sparrows to skittering from limb to limb. From there, he could see the orphanage looming at the end of the road like an old fortress.

He planned to talk to the superintendent, who might have records that would help him locate Samuel Ash. If he could get no help there, he'd check in with the town cop. Small-town cops often knew the ins and outs of family histories, who was cheating on whom, who owed whom money, and who nurtured what grudges over the years.

Hook had no reason to believe that Samuel Ash had ever been in trouble. And it struck him as unlikely that a Bronze Star recipient would wind up on the wrong side of the law. But then again, exceptions to the rule were not all that exceptional when it came to lawbreakers. Some of the orneriest bastards he'd known on the rails could show uncommon courage when things turned hard.

Hook stopped at the bottom of the steps leading up to the main landing of the orphanage. A pickup pulled out from the rear of the building and backed up to a brick incinerator that had been constructed near the fence line. A man in a cowboy hat got out and threw several bags of trash into it.

After taking a chew, he climbed back in and pulled off down the drive, turning to look at Hook as he went by.

Hook rang the doorbell twice before an older woman opened up. Her hair had been lifted into a high bun on the top of her head, and a food-spattered apron covered her from neck to knees.

“Yes,” she said.

“My name is Hook Runyon. I wonder if I might speak with the superintendent?”

“I'm just the cook around here, as you can see. There's a board meeting starting up, I'd guess, given Mr. Eagleman ordered food on top of everything else I've got to do. You never know how long it's going to last, do you? I never knew men had such important business to tend to.”

“I'm the Santa Fe bull. This is an official call.”

“Come on in,” she said. “You can ask him yourself. His office is upstairs, second door on the right.”

“Thanks,” he said.

She stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “If those men had to fix meals for all these kids, with nothing but lovesick girls for helping out, they'd be a little more considerate about what they ask for.”

“Thanks, again,” Hook said.

When she'd gone, Hook climbed to the landing and looked down over the railing. The dining area had an oak table that stretched the length of the room. Wooden, straight-backed chairs lined the table on both sides. Large windows, bare of curtains and mounted high up on the wall, shed little light into the dimness of the room.

He found the office door ajar and a man pouring a glass of water from a pitcher that sat on top of an old safe under the window. A row of filing cabinets ran the length of the office wall. Hook knocked, and the man looked at him over his shoulder.

“Mr. Bain Eagleman?” Hook asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“My name is Hook Runyon. I'm the Santa Fe railroad bull. Could I speak to you for a moment?”

Eagleman set his water on his desk, an enormous flattop desk with nothing on it but a telephone, an opened calendar, and a wide-brimmed fedora.

Transparent eyes, like blue glass, leveled in on Hook. A strand of hair dropped down on Eagleman's forehead, and he pushed it aside with his fingers.

“There's a board meeting in progress, Mr. uh…”

“Runyon.”

“Mr. Runyon, if this is about a child, you need to speak with Miss Feola, our matron, at the end of the hall.”

“No. It isn't that,” Hook said. “Another time then.”

Eagleman stepped from behind the desk, much larger and older than Hook had first thought. He wore a spare black suit with notched lapels, white shirt, wide tie, and highly polished wing-tip shoes. His weak stomach suggested a man well into middle age.

“We operate by appointment here at Agape. Perhaps a call first would save you a trip.”

“Right, I'll be sure and do that,” Hook said, closing the door behind him.

He stood for a moment to let the heat in his neck dissipate. He had a low tolerance for pompous bastards, even when they came wearing suits. Being dismissed by one didn't rank high on his feel-good list. But then maybe Eagleman's job required a high degree of self-importance. Running a place like Agape couldn't be easy.

The hall stretched off in both directions with only a single window at each end to light it. Buildings, like people, had a way about them. This one struck him as too clean and too organized. Given children lived here, it lacked life: no toys, no clothes left about, no arguments in progress.

Hook decided to take a quick look around before heading back to town. Perhaps he could find out about Samuel Ash from someone else, someone in authority like Miss Feola.

*   *   *

He had just lifted his prosthesis to knock, when the door opened, and a young woman stood foursquare in front of him with a hammer in her hand.

“Oh,” she said.

“I may look like Captain Hook, but we're only namesakes,” he said.

“Oh, my,” she said. “You startled me. I was just going to hang my office sign.”

The secretary looked up from her desk, checked out Hook's prosthesis, and returned to her papers.

“I'm Hook Runyon,” he said. “Are you Miss Feola?”

“Yes, Celia Feola,” she said. “I'm the matron here.”

“I'm the Santa Fe railroad bull and would like to visit with you about a case.”

She laid her hammer and sign on the chair next to the door and straightened her skirt.

“What kind of case would that be?”

“Could we talk in private, Miss Feola?”

She placed a finger at the corner of her mouth as if to accentuate the curve of her lip. Her auburn hair, nearly the exact color of her eyes, lit in the sunlight that struck through the hall window. A small cupped scar interrupted the sweep of an otherwise perfect widow's peak. For a woman so tall and willowy, ample breasts were evident beneath her blouse, and her skin, as transparent as candle wax, had somehow escaped the harshness of the prairie sun.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Runyon. I'm expecting an appointment at any moment. Perhaps you could come back another time?”

“I'm trying to locate the relatives of a Samuel Ash. Maybe you've heard of him?”

She lifted her chin. “No, but then I've just arrived myself, you see. If you could come back, say, tomorrow afternoon around two, I'd be happy to speak with you.”

“One question,” Hook said. “Where are all the children?”

“Most of them attend the public school,” she said. “They won't be back for several hours yet.”

“I see,” he said. “Tomorrow, then.”

*   *   *

Without reading material or company, Hook decided a little Beam might be in order to pass away the evening. The package store, tucked away behind the filling station, turned out to be a little building no larger than a bathroom. He bought a half-pint of Beam, ignoring the owner's stare as he counted out the change with his prosthesis. On his way out the door, he flipped a penny up, snatched it from the air with his prosthesis, and dropped it into his pocket.

The shoe shop had yet to close, so he went in the front and found Patch gluing on half soles to a pair of work boots.

“There you are,” Patch said. “I thought maybe Eagleman had run you off.”

“How'd you know I went there?”

“Bill over to the filling station saw you walking down the road. Ain't nothing out there except the orphanage and the cemetery. You likely went to the cemetery already so that left the orphanage; besides, Skink said you showered over to the park. A man doesn't just up and shower for no reason.”

Hook watched Patch run the boot sole through the sewing machine with accomplished skill.

“I couldn't get in without an appointment,” Hook said.

“Well, I could of told you that if you'd asked. Bain Eagleman wears wing-tip shoes.”

“Excuse me?”

“Wing tips ain't casual, but they ain't formal; they ain't neither or both, and the word of a man who wears them can't be much trusted.”

“I'm going to bed on that one, Patch.”

“And in the morning, you can tell Skink to stop sleeping on the job if he wants to work here.”

“How'd you know that?”

Patch turned back to his shoes. “I didn't 'til just now,” he said.

*   *   *

Hook found a paper cup in the bedside table and fixed himself a Beam. Having no water, he drank it neat, which in turn emptied the half-pint in short order.

Turning out the lights, he lay in the darkness and considered the day's events. This much he knew: if in fact Samuel Ash had lived here, there might be one or two people who hadn't heard of him. But when no one in town had heard of him, then the mistake had to be his own.

Tomorrow, he'd make a final run at it, check in with the town cop, and then out to the orphanage and Miss Feola. If that didn't pan out, he'd hop the next short haul back to Avard and figure out from there what to do with Samuel Ash.

 

25

 

S
KINK LAID DOWN
his broom and pointed out the window to the sheriff's office.

“It don't look like it,” he said. “But that's where he is when he ain't painting houses. Even when he's on duty, he don't drive around that much. Says the city don't pay enough for him to use his own car and buy his own gas for cruising up and down the street.”

Hook pulled up the stool to Patch's workbench.

“By the way, Patch says he doesn't want you sleeping on the job. Says he'll be watching.”

Skink picked up his broom and swept at the dirt that had fallen off someone's shoes at the door.

He paused. “I thought you weren't going to say anything about that, Hook.”

“Well, I didn't, not exactly. Patch figured it out on his own.”

Skink shook his head. “There ain't nothing gets by Patch. He's like a spirit flying over and looking down on everyone all the time.”

“Patch doesn't strike me as spiritual, Skink.”

Skink pulled at what passed for his chin. “Sometimes in the night, I think I see him standing over my bed. ‘Skink,' he says. ‘I'm telling Mr. Eagleman about what you're doing under them covers.'”

“Maybe you ought go to sleep when you go to bed, Skink. That way you could stay awake at work.”

“It's the only attention I get,” he said.

“I'm sure you've had girlfriends, Skink.”

“Not so many as you might think,” he said.

“Don't you worry, Skink. Someone will come along.”

“I sure hope so. I'm dead sick of Patch standing over my bed.”

*   *   *

Hook found the sheriff sitting on the steps, leaning back with his legs crossed. He wore cowboy boots with holes in the bottoms.

Shielding his eyes against the sun with his hand, he said, “Yeah, I'm the sheriff. What can I do for you?”

“I'm the Santa Fe bull,” Hook said. “Suppose we could talk?”

“Sure,” he said. “Come on in. Talk don't cost nothing.”

His office and the city utilities office sat side by side in the same building. The jail, no more than a cage, actually, had been welded up from angle iron and fitted into the back room. A thunder pot had been shoved under the bunk.

The sheriff pointed for Hook to sit down.

“So what's the problem?” he asked.

“I've been trying to locate the kin of one Samuel Ash. It's my understanding he once lived here.”

The sheriff took off his hat, revealing a sunken place in his skull.

He looked at Hook. “I won't ask about your arm if you don't ask about this hole in my head.”

“Deal,” Hook said.

“Is there a warrant out on this guy?”

“He's dead. I'm trying to find his people.”

The sheriff tossed his hat on his desk. “No Samuel Ash that I ever heard of. We had a Samuel Newsome. Died of tetanus. I got called on that one. Dead as a carp he was, and he had this grin pulled up nearly to his ear, all from that lockjaw, I guess. Just froze up that way. Damndest thing I ever saw.”

“Ash,” Hook said. “Samuel Ash, a young guy.”

“Had to watch old Sam Newsome every minute, you know. He'd stand out there in the park and take a leak where all the girls could see him. If there was ever a son of a bitch what deserved to die with the lockjaw, it had to be Samuel Newsome. But no Samuel Ash ever lived here, that much I can tell you.”

“Well, thanks anyway, Sheriff. Guess I have the wrong information.”

“You hear of anyone needs their house painted, let me know. This goddang job don't pay squat.”

“Right,” Hook said.

When the phone rang, the sheriff picked up. “Yeah. No shit,” he said. “I'll be on out. Take me about twenty minutes.”

When he'd hung up, Hook said, “Problem?”

The sheriff plunked on his hat. “Old lady Engle fell out of her porch swing and broke her leg. I better get on out there. Might have to shoot her.”

*   *   *

Hook watched the sheriff pull off. Through the door window, he could see an old man paying his utilities in the adjoining office. The old man adjusted his crotch before leaving.

While he shouldn't be using the sheriff's phone for long-distance calls, Hook supposed it
was
all law business. Might even say he was doing the legwork for the sheriff himself, saving the city money.